[Reaper16]

17. Alcest – Shelter


Alcest’s previous two albums each were top 10 favorites for me. His blend of black metal and shoegaze just hit me in all of my beauty centers. This new album by Alcest is less successful because he has totally dropped the black metal influence. It’s gone. Shelter is a shoegaze album through & through. But while the album got mixed reviews from shoegaze fans, who critique the album of being too derivative of Slowdive, I am not a big shoegaze fan. I don’t have a deep knowledge of the genre. So all I hear is the same shoegaze aspects of the Alcest sound with a simpler, heavy rock drive instead of a black metal drive. This album sounds like an eagle flying though the air instead of a bat. The bat swoop was much better, but this is still plenty nice if you liked the swoop in the first place. That is a terrible metaphor, isn’t it. I’ll try again: this is a glossy, endearingly pretty album that sounds like you’re drinking sunshine and eagle feathers. Dang. I can’t get my mind off of birds as I listen to this. Not every track is as standout as “Opale,” “La nuit marche avec moi,” or “L’eveil des muses” are, and I chalk that up to Alcest removing that black metal juxtaposition from the formula. Still, this is one of the better pick-me-up albums I listened to this year.